On June 15, 2025, the newspaper El Imparcial published a story under the headline “Ingenio mexicano” about a woman who used the rain to fill the water tank on her roof. She went viral.
On May 4, 2026, the same newspaper reported that a taxi driver “se vuelve viral en redes por su ingenio mexicano” (goes viral on social media for his Mexican ingenuity) after he adapted a ventilation system with PVC pipes.
On October 15, 1951, Luis Ernesto Miramontes, a 26-year-old chemist, achieved the first synthesis of norethisterone at the Syntex laboratories in Mexico City. According to the Gaceta UNAM, norethisterone made possible the first contraceptive pill. The patent for the synthesis is credited to Miramontes, George Rosenkranz and Carl Djerassi.
According to the Gaceta UNAM, the profits belonged to the company.
In 2024, Mexico’s patent office, IMPI, received 16,189 patent applications. According to a column in Expansión, “solo el 6.38% provino de mexicanos” (only 6.38 percent came from Mexicans). Of 10,897 patents granted, 694 went to Mexican holders.
In the Global Innovation Index of 2025, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Mexico fell two places to 58th of 140 economies.
The weather site Meteored México published a list of ten inventions by Mexican scientists that changed the world. It includes the color television of Guillermo González Camarena, the contraceptive pill and lluvia sólida, “solid rain.”
One entry is hedged. Of Manuel Gutiérrez Novelo, the list says: “se le atribuye la invención de una patente que se utilizó en la codificación del Blu-Ray 3D” (he is credited with a patent that was used in the encoding of 3D Blu-ray).
On the night of November 26, 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican in space, aboard the shuttle Atlantis. According to Excélsior, during his seven days in space he asked for tortillas in his daily ration.
Excélsior writes that NASA technicians found them the perfect food for space, because a tortilla “no genera ninguna migaja que pueda poner en riesgo a la nave” (produces no crumb that could endanger the craft).
Under the title “De México para el mundo, así fue como el chicle nació en nuestro país” (From Mexico to the world, this is how chewing gum was born in our country), Chilango tells how Antonio López de Santa Anna, in exile in the United States, became a friend of Thomas Adams. Adams then made his own version of the product. He launched it in 1871.
In Roberto Gómez Bolaños’s television comedy El Chapulín Colorado, one of the hero’s catchphrases is “¡No contaban con mi astucia!” (They did not count on my cunning!). His weapon is the chipote chillón, a squeaky toy mallet.
The show ran from 1973 to 1979. The character kept appearing in sketches until 1992.